Water – To Your Health

What is Water?

Water is the most abundant substance found on our planet, in our bodies and in our food, making up to 70 to 90% percent of all organic matter. The liquids, particularly the type of water we consume has a profound affect on our health. The subject of water is a far more complex issue for our wellbeing than we have ever thought.

Water is compose of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen; H2O. Remember when we all learned about this simple chemical bond in 8^th grade science? Waters 3 dimensional, electrical properties make it an amazing chemical force. It can break apart string chemical bonds of other compounds, consider what happens when you put salt into water. Salt is very stable when dry but is quickly torn apart into ions (atoms with an electrical charge) when introduced into water.

Water is indeed the “universal solvent” and is involved in most of the biochemical pathways in our bodies. The Chemistry of Life on our planet is mostly involved with water. This makes water and the quality of water one of the most important health giving nutrients we can give our bodies.

It is involved in most of the chemical processes that happen every second we are alive within our cells, and is the ultimate detoxifier.

The elaborate structure formed by water molecules as a result of its electrical field create a form of memory that has been demonstrated by magnetic resonance imaging machines MRI). Check out the work of Professor Emoto concerning his experiments with water memory, it will blow your mind!

There are three vital issues concerning water and your health: acid/alkaline balance, impurities, and infrastructure.

WHY BE ALKALINE?

To understand why the alkalinity or acidity of water-based drinks is important to health, we need to realise that your health is extremely sensitive to the slightest change in pH level of your bodies vital fluids. Stomach fluid, for example is extremely acidic, with a pH of 1.5 (pH less than 7 is acid and more than 7 is alkaline). Pancreatic fluid, on the other hand is fairly alkaline, with a pH of 8.8. The pH inside our cells can range from 6.8 to 7.1 and the most important balance of all is in our blood, where the pH is very tightly controlled between 7.35 and 7.45.

Your body will act to neutralise acidic drinks like soft drinks and coffee with alkaline blood buffers, which are then unavailable to neutralise other acidic waste products continually produced by the body. This can include by products of our own digestion such as acetic acid and lactic acid produced by the muscles during exercise. When the bodies supply of alkaline buffers is lowered in this way, these toxic waste products of our normal day accumulate in our bodies causing significant health damage.

For example the body uses calcium to convert the poisonous liquid phosphoric acid in soft drinks into the more stable solid phosphates. But these phosphates may form into calcified kidney stones, or calcium deposits (which can also result from urinary infections, metabolic disorders, and other causes). Many people mistakenly think that stones are formed in the body from excess calcium, but the real culprit may be high levels of phosphoric acid, which is one of the primary ingredients in soft drinks.

Consuming too many acidic foods may also result creating the ideal environment for cancer to form. Animal cells survive best in an alkaline environment with a blood pH of 7.35 to 7.45. Our bodies are becoming increasingly acidic because of environmental issues and our modern diets.

Not all acidic foods add to the acidity in our bodies, take orange juice for example, it has an high pH of 3.5, however because the citric acid is burned away during digestion and it also contains potassium and magnesium, which interact with water to create alkaline ions, drinking orange juice actually increases alkalinity in your body. Lemon juice has an even greater alkaline effect in your body, and drinking pure lemon juice in water, is one of the ways I recommend that people lower their overall acidity and detoxify their bodies.

Waiter There’s Impurities in My Water!

Straight tap water can contain many impurities, including inorganic poisons such as chlorine and pathogens such as bacteria, viruses and fungi. For some countries it also contains fluoride, which is another poison introduced by some councils in order to harden teeth in the general population. (I have included the Scientific American article at the end of this page for your interest).

The Infrastructure of My Water

Magnetic Resonance Imagine (MRI) reveals that most tap water is organised into clusters of about 12 molecules each. In alkalinised water, the microclusters are reduced in size to only six molecules each. This enhances the absorption of the water into our cells, thereby boosting its hydration and detoxifying effects.

Water, Water My Kingdom for Some Water

What we have learned about water means that we need to take care of the quality of the liquids we drink. Drinking tea, coffee, fruit juice, cordial or soft drinks is not the same as drinking water. Sugar and caffeine are dehydrating, so water must be water and we should drink approximately 1 to 2.5 litres of good quality, filtered water a day to remain hydrated. Did you know that brain fag, headaches and a lack of energy can be attributed to dehydration? By the time you actually feel thirsty you are dehydrated.

Get yourself a good quality filter and avoid putting your water in plastic bottles (please see the article on water in plastic below). A good quality filter will last and the best ones also spin the water or filter it through volcanic rocks to increase alkalinity, so look for one of these if your budget can run to it. It is a great investment in yours and your familie’s health.

SECOND THOUGHTS ABOUT FLUORIDE – Reports Scientific American

NEW YORK, Jan. 2, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- "Some recent studies suggest that over-consumption of fluoride can raise the risks of disorders affecting teeth, bones, the brain and the thyroid gland," reports Scientific American editors (January 2008). "Scientific attitudes toward fluoridation may be starting to shift," writes author Dan Fagin.

"Fluoride, the most consumed drug in the USA, is deliberately added to 2/3 of public water supplies theoretically to reduce tooth decay, but with no scientifically-valid evidence proving safety or effectiveness," says lawyer Paul Beeber, President, New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation.

Fagin, award-wining environmental reporter and Director of New York University's Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program, writes, "There is no universally accepted optimal level for daily intake of fluoride." Some researchers even wonder whether the 1 mg/L added into drinking water is too much, reports Fagin.

After 3 years of scrutinizing hundreds of studies, a National Research Council (NRC) committee "concluded that fluoride can subtly alter endocrine function, especially in the thyroid -- the gland that produces hormones regulating growth and metabolism," reports Fagin.

Fagin quotes John Doull, professor emeritus of pharmacology and toxicology at the University of Kansas Medical Center, who chaired the NRC committee thusly, "The thyroid changes do worry me."

Fluoride in foods, beverages, medicines and dental products can result in fluoride over-consumption, visible in young children as dental fluorosis -- white spotted, yellow, brown and/or pitted teeth. We can't normally see fluoride's effects to the rest of the body.

Reports Fagin, "a series of epidemiological studies in China have associated high fluoride exposures with lower IQ."

"(E)pidemiological studies and tests on lab animals suggest that high fluoride exposure increases the risk of bone fracture, especially in vulnerable populations such as the elderly and diabetics," writes Fagin.

Fagin interviewed Steven Levy, director of the Iowa Fluoride Study which tracked about 700 Iowa children for sixteen years. Nine-year-old "Iowa children who lived in communities where the water was fluoridated were 50 percent more likely to have mild fluorosis... than [nine-year-old] children living in nonfluoridated areas of the state," writes Fagin. Levy will study fluoride's effects on their bones.

Over 1200 professionals urge Congress to cease water fluoridation and conduct Congressional hearings because scientific evidence indicates fluoridation is ineffective and has serious health risks.

Scientists issue warning about chemical in plastic bottles

In an unusual effort targeting a single chemical, several dozen scientists on Thursday issued a strongly worded consensus statement warning that an estrogen-like compound in plastic is likely to be causing an array of serious reproductive disorders in people.

Used to make hard plastic, BPA can seep from beverage containers and other materials. It is used in all polycarbonate plastic baby bottles, as well as other rigid plastic items, including large water cooler containers, sports bottles and microwave oven dishes, along with canned food liners and some dental sealants for children.

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